Playing With Fire

By Brandi Grigg

I think I just singed my armpit,” Matt noted as his poi, two fiery balls attached to chains, swirled around him with practiced ease. “Armpit hair will carry a flame pretty well, too.” The flames continued to fly around in looping arcs despite the buffeting of the wind. Their hypnotic grace almost made me forget the fact that I was shivering underneath four layers of clothing.

It was a Tuesday night in Davis’ Central Park. A handful of gleeful pyromaniacs were gathered to hang out and play with fire. It was a practice night for Flux, a fire-spinning group that has displayed its skill in performances from Sacramento to the Bay Area and beyond. And weather-wise, it was probably the worst night I could have picked to come see them in action.

Fighting the wind and cold, they still made a valiant effort to get at least some practicing in, and to give me a chance to see how they can make their flames dance. “I’m going to need some room here,” Matt warned and whirled a flaming bull whip above his head; the drummer in the corner merely ducked without missing a beat as one fireball after another snapped off the end. Then Kim twirled a hula hoop inferno around herself, spiraling it around her waist, chest, neck, and hands. Her friends cheered her on as she worked her hips: “Somebody give that girl a dollar!” Dani swallowed the flame from what looked like an oversized match, and more fiery staffs and poi lit up the night.

The first thing I wanted to know is how one even gets into the fire dancing thing to begin with. It’s not like the average person sits on the couch one day and decides, “Hey, maybe I should go swing some flaming balls around myself.” But boredom does seem to be a factor. “I had just moved out to Davis from Berkeley, and I was really bored,” Matt, the semi-official leader of Flux, explained. “I was in a park drinking and playing Frisbee and saw some fire spinners, and some of them were cute girls. One thing leads to another…and that’s how I got into it.” He is not alone; it seems that most people find out about fire spinning by seeing it somewhere.

Another member, Mia, searched online to find local people into the fire arts after watching some spinners at Burning Man. For those wishing to learn, there are classes available at the UC Davis Experimental College, and Matt occasionally teaches workshops. But he says that most of the dancers learn by trial and error, and by teaching each other. “Most of the people who are going to get good at it are the ones who just show up and hang out.”

And there is certainly no shortage of people to learn from in the area. Davis especially seems to host a hotbed of fire dancers, if you pardon the pun. “It’s kind of big in Davis. Probably because there’s nothing else going on,” Dani notes. “It’s better than watching TV,” Matt adds. Indeed, the practice session seems to be just a group of friends hanging out having a good time. Just with fire. There is also a thriving online community on tribe.net, where meet-ups, practices, and performances are often posted.

For Flux, as with other fire dancing groups these performances are often parties and weddings. They also did a show in Old Sacramento on New Year’s Eve and one at the Crocker Art Museum in October. But as Matt and the other members of the group attest, nobody’s really into it for the money. “It’s mainly just a way to entertain ourselves, which is why we do it in the first place, and if we make a little money for it, why not? Getting paid just validates the fact that you’re good at it more than anything else.”

It may seem like a crazy hobby, but the group assures me that it looks more dangerous than it actually is. Sure, minor injuries happen, but surprisingly, bruises are more common than burns.

These mostly come from hitting oneself with one’s props, such as a poi to the back of the head. Megan describes how her wrists were swollen for weeks when she was leaning to spin the staff, and Matt confesses he nearly cut a nipple off with his whip. Though playing with fire does have its price, the group seems pretty acclimated to having short eyelashes and to dealing with the smell of burnt hair.

“It’s all about perceived danger rather than actual danger,” Matt explains. “Driving in a car, that’s really dangerous. You’re moving in a metal box at 60 miles an hour, with other metal boxes flying around you on all sides…People hurt themselves fairly regularly with this, but they have to be doing something phenomenally dumb.”

The perceived danger of fire is part of the appeal, at least from the audience’s point of view. Fire excites us; there is just something so beautiful and primal about it that catches our attention and draws us in…especially when spun with the skill of performers like these. But don’t take my word for it, check them out for yourself. Flux will be performing at FireDrums in Santa Cruz in early May, and at Burning Man this summer. And anyone interested in booking them for an event or just getting some more information on fire dancing can contact them at: flux.contact@gmail. com.